I'm not posting this in the hope that it will change anything. Since Dave Brandon came out in favor of moving the Michigan-Ohio State game to midseason there's been tremendous fan pushback, with opinion running about 10-to-1 against. It obviously doesn't matter, because the men in suits are ramping up the meaningless PR doublespeak to alarming levels:

…the reason the Big Ten is great is because of our fans. We had five and a half million fans come to games [in 2009]. Whether it’s the Rose Bowl or Ohio State-Michigan, we welcome that, and there’s an awful lot of discussion of, generally speaking, how our fans feel about what we do. We're not fan-insensitive, we're fan-receptive and are only interested in doing what is going to grow our fan base.

Whenever someone starts talking about how great the fans are, the fans are about to get it in uncomfortable places, especially when that's the first thing they talk about in the face of obvious, massive opposition. Meanwhile, the SID is trying to calm people over email by saying for Michigan and Ohio State to meet for the conference title they will "have to play their way into the championship game." If it was a trial balloon people would be walking it back by now after thereactionit'sreceived. The thing is far enough along that Barry Alvarez is flat-out stating that Iowa and Wisconsin will be split up. It's actually happening.

So this doesn't matter. But here's why Michigan and Ohio State's athletic directors should be out in the streets rounding up pitchfork-toting mobs instead of rolling over like Indiana:

The financial benefits are almost literally zero. Dan Wetzel cites a TV executive claiming that at maximum, the vague possibility of Michigan and Ohio State meeting in a Big Ten championship game once a decade might be worth two million dollars a year ("it might be half that," he adds). Even taking the most optimistic number, the end result for Michigan is another 150k per year (the conference takes a share). Assuming an average of seven home games a year, Michigan could earn that by raising ticket prices twenty cents. Meanwhile, every other Big Ten team sees the same increase in their bottom line.

Twenty cents!

Michigan and Ohio State will almost never meet. The Plain Dealer looked back at the league since Penn State's addition and concluded that in the last sixteen years, a Michigan-Ohio State championship game would have happened all of three times.

In the future you can expect that to be far less frequent. Michigan will be guaranteed that 1) they play an outstanding Ohio State team and 2) three of the other five teams in their division do not. If the matchup is going to occur it's going to be the same for Ohio State. The loser of that game is going to have to overcome that deficit against teams that have a much easier schedule. The addition of Nebraska adds another historic power to the league. "Once a decade" is not hyperbole. It's a reasonable estimate.

As a result, you are turning M-OSU from something that will always have stakes to something you hope to do over. This is Delany's reasoning:

"If Duke and North Carolina were historically the two strongest programs and only one could play for the right to be in the NCAA tournament, would you want them playing in the season-ending game so one is in and one is out?" he asked. "Or would you want them to play and have it count in the standings and then they possibly could meet for the right to be in the NCAA or the Rose Bowl?

"We've had those debates. It's a good one. The question is whether you want to confine a game that's one of the greatest rivalries of all time to a divisional game."

Yes. Because the loser of that game is doomed and knows it. Moving it to midseason just makes it a particularly high hurdle that might not mean much—that the conference explicitly hopes doesn't mean much—at the end of the year, when the two teams can do it again, except indoors in Indianapolis. Doctor Saturday:

Keep the game what it's always been, the ritualistic culmination of an entire season in a single, freezing orgy of centuries-old hate that cannot be overturned or redeemed for at least another 365 days. In good years, the division championship (hence a shot at the conference championship) will be on the line, preserving the familiar winner-take-all/loser-go-home intensity that made "The Game" what it is in the first place.

You are doing something your fans hate. The kids don't get paid, the stadium doesn't have advertising, the idea that there is a Michigan Thing that it is possible not to "get" in a way that it is not possible Jim Schwartz does not "get" the Lions Thing: these are the things that separate college football from minor league baseball. For decades Michigan's season has had a certain shape defined by the great Satan at the end of it.

This is where the disconnect between the suits and the fans is greatest. Beating Ohio State isn't about winning the Big Ten, it's about beating Ohio State, just like the Egg Bowl is about beating that other team in Mississippi or the Civil War is about beating that other team in Oregon or any billion other year-end rivalry games that have been played since the Great Depression. M-OSU is the super-sized version of the old-fashioned rivalries based on pure hate. It's not Miami-Florida State, a game entirely dependent on the teams being national contenders for it to even sell out, but the Big Ten is treating it like the country's fakest rivalry game anyway.

It so happens that a lot of the time OSU and Michigan do decide the Big Ten, but did anyone want to beat OSU less in the mid-90s when Michigan limped into the game with 3 or 4 losses every year? Or last year? No. Would it matter less as an October game to be followed by three or four more? Necessarily yes. Is that the worst thing in the world? Yes.

I have no tolerance for anyone too dense to grasp this, much less see it as a potentially good thing, as Dave at Maize N Brew does. I said his post on the matter was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen a Michigan fan write and it remains so. Orson's post on the matter is also the dumbest thing I've ever seen him write. The reason college football matters in a way the NFL does not is the idea it has that some things are not worth selling. Once the date of the Michigan-Ohio State game goes the only thing left is the labor of the players.

I'll still be there. I don't have a choice, really, but the special kind of misery I'll experience when Michigan plays Ohio State at 8 PM in October and Special K blasts "Lose Yourself" during a critical review will make me feel like an exploited sap, not a member of a community in which my opinions matter. They clearly don't. This will matter in the same way erosion does.

Because I have a soul, I've already firmly aligned myself with the "armageddon" crowd, made up of those of us who can't stand the thought of one side telling the other in mid-October, "We'll see you again when it really matters." Which probably means I've aligned myself with the losing side. Whatever the motivations of its less influential champions, the prospect of a Buckeye-Wolverine split only has traction among people who matter because the people who matter see a buck in it: If one Ohio State-Michigan game is good, two Ohio State-Michigan games must be even better, and I'm sure they have the ratings projections and accompanying ad rates to prove it. The rivalry has already defined and shaped the national perception of the Big Ten for the last 50 years; just think of the possibility of the rivalry-as-championship game as "expanding the brand."

Are you kidding me? It's been played the last week of the season all but once since 1935, and it's the league's single most important franchise. You would think conference leaders would go to any length to protect it. …

Sometimes leaders make decisions without properly thinking through the issues. This one sounds like a case of over-thinking. Do the right thing, Mr. Delany, Mr. Brandon and Mr. Smith, lest the ghosts of Woody and Bo haunt you in your sleep.

Be warned, Big Ten: you move The Game, you will rip the heart and suck the soul out of the single greatest property the conference owns. And for what, a few more advertising dollars every few years when they do happen to stumble into a title showdown? One that will, incidentally, likely be contested in a sterile, domed, neutral location as opposed to yet another reason that The Game is what it is -- The Big House and The Shoe.

So… yeah. Join the Facebook page. Maybe it will help. It won't, actually, but maybe you'll feel better about it.

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I was one of the students who took the field after Michigan beat OSU to end the undefeated season in '97. The culmination of a perfect season, against our biggest rival was too much to stand and is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

Anyone who refers to the effort of the blood, sweat and tears of a group of people as "product" or "brand" has no soul.

this is only permanent as long as the b10 is 12 teams, this can only get worse in the future.

the other asteroid getting ready to destroy college football is the impending NFL 18 game schedule, which will most likely mean their horrible, lifeless games start the same weekend or before college football.

I've already bought my tickets for Columbus. No time like the present to finally see my first game in the shoe. By the end of the game I expect to be bawling my eyes out, hugging buckeye fans as we commiserate the worst decision in the history of college sports.

I've talked with Bama fans, Auburn fans, and Tennessee fans about the effect of moving their rivalry games, and to a person everyone has said they STILL hate each other. Your argument that they MUST play at the end of the season for the hate to remain palpable is just nonsense:

Would it matter less as an October game to be followed by three or four more? Necessarily yes. Is that the worst thing in the world? Yes.

I find it intersting that you site two rivalries that pale in comparison to Michigan Ohio State or Tennesse Alabama. The Vol Bama match up is so much more appropriate. Traditionally, Tennessee and Bama traditionally met on the 3rd Saturday in October, but they don't any more. Hell expansion put them in different divisions. That hasn't changed the importance of that game to Tennessee or Bama fans. They still hate each other, and the game still matters.

Personally, I don't care where Ohio State falls on the calendar as long as we play them in a conference game. The important thing is that we play them, not when we play them. If the teams end up in the same division and The Game remains unchanged, I'm fine with that too. The Big Ten has made that decision already, and regardless of what it is, we'll all have to live with it.

But what is ironic, at least to me, is that you were one of the great champions of expansion and a championship game. You promoted it with your personal understanding that your world view wouldn't be changed. The world would revolve around your concept of the Big Ten. It doesn't work that way, and any catostrophic change like conference expansion has consequences for everyone. Including Michigan. You got exactly what you ordered, but now you're complaining about the fine print you refused to acknowledge was there.

Lastly, your lack of tolerance for other viewpoints is really, really stunning. In every argument there are at least two sides, and usually more. There are plenty of hard core Michigan fans who believe something different that you do on this subject. Your complete disregard for their opinions, and in fact disdain for their opinions, insults the very nature of what many Michigan alumni hold dear, that whether you agree with it or not everyone's opinion is valuable.

Instead, you've decided that your point of view is the only one there is. Not only is that one of the dumbest positions you've ever taken, it's insulting to many other Michigan grads and fans. But then again, you've made clear that you don't care what other people think.

I never realized MGo had been taken over by Fox News. Say hi to Glenn Beck for me, Brian.

I'm at a loss as to why this got personal as well, but I'm the guy responding to Brian twice calling my opinion "the dumbest fucking thing" he'd ever seen a Michigan fan write. At a certain point you get tired of it. I'm not mad at Brian having a different opinion than me, I'm upset that he couldn't express his own opinion without being insulting and demeaning.

I've talked with Bama fans, Auburn fans, and Tennessee fans about the effect of moving their rivalry games, and to a person everyone has said they STILL hate each other. Your argument that they MUST play at the end of the season for the hate to remain palpable is just nonsense:

I really don't give a shit about Bama or Auburn or Tennessee fans feelings.

Traditionally, Tennessee and Bama traditionally met on the 3rd Saturday in October, but they don't any more.

Now they meet somewhere around there. This is not analogous to taking a season ending game and moving it up 3+ weeks.

But what is ironic, at least to me, is that you were one of the great champions of expansion and a championship game. You promoted it with your personal understanding that your world view wouldn't be changed. The world would revolve around your concept of the Big Ten. It doesn't work that way, and any catostrophic change like conference expansion has consequences for everyone. Including Michigan. You got exactly what you ordered, but now you're complaining about the fine print you refused to acknowledge was there.

The prevailing assumption was that Mich and OSU would be in the same division and The Game would be a Champ game play-in. That's the fine print I think everyone was expecting.

Tennessee and Bama are/were two annual powers who have a horrible, hate filled rivalry that was set on a particular date. These are real, comparable institutions with passionate, downright crazy fanbases. I use them as an example of the type of passionate fanbases that were and are affected by change, change exactly like what Michigan is going through. My point is, these two schools experienced what Michigan may experience and came out fine. That is my point. Their rivalry remains vivrant and passionate. Splitting them up wasn't the end of the world. Take it FWIW, but it's certianly a better analogy than Ole miss/MSU or the oregon schools (especially since they don't have a championship game yet).

As to your other point, no, I am not for changing this. I wish the Big Ten had stayed at ten schools and we weren't having this debate. But we did. We are. And that can't be undone. So I'm looking at this from a practical standpoint. Change is coming and there's little we can do about it. I'm suggesting that this isn't the end of the world and we try to embrace the core tenant of the rivalry, that the two school hate one another.

This isn't as bad as it could be and we don't know how this will eventually shake out. Maybe the conference realigns in five years. Maybe it doesn't. But no matter what, the Game as we know it is going to change.

Auburn and Bama weren't split up, like Michigan and OSU are being. If Michigan and OSU end up in the same division, this whole argument is irrelevant. What we're dealing with is two powers getting split, and that's the best available comparison.

I asked the writers of Roll Bama Roll that same question about Auburn, and they told me it doesn't matter when they play. They just hate one another. They hated each other so much they didn't play one another for 40 years.

besides ensuring that Michigan and Ohio State play every year, that both are still in the Big Ten, that the Maize and Blue go up against the Scarlet and Gray, that the Block "M" and Script "Ohio" appear on the field, that the games are played in the Big House and the Horseshoe, that the bands play Carmen Ohio and the Victors, that the fans care about the outcome, that the players care about the outcome, that the game is still on national television, that the anticipation of playing your rival make the work week impossible to concentrate on, that the smack talk between the fan bases never ceases, that the teams still run out of the Tunnel at separate times, that we still remember the games that have gone past and dream about the ones in the future, that you still root for anyone playing OSU, that no matter who is coaching Ohio State he's still the devil, that if you beat OSU it makes your season worthwhile, or that you still cheer just as loud for Michigan to beat OSU if we're 3-8 or 11-0?

Games played in the Big House or Horseshoe - well, not the one that matters....

Fans care about the outcome - well, not as much as they used to, because there's still half the season to recover, and it's not final, and it doesn't build up.

Players care- the same, but to a lesser extent.

Game on National Television- not with the prominence it once had.

Anticipation- a week, instead of a full season.

Smack Talk- smack talk originates more from it being the big end note of the year.

Teams running out of the tunnel at separate times? You're just looking for filler now.

And the history, tied into the if you beat Ohio State, it still makes your season worthwhile- well, it doesn't. Because it doesn't ruin anyone's season. Because they have more games to play. Can recover for the Big Ten or National Titles. Or, play them again, at which point, the first game means nothing. So it doesn't make the season at all, under that format.

I don't get why you think fans or players care less about the outcome. Do you really believe Tate Forcier is going to care less about the game because it's in October? Will that cause Terrelle Pryor to not prepare as much?

Wouldn't you get just as much satisfaction beating a 7-0 OSU team leading them into a downward spiral to 7-5?

Brian and both fan bases making a big stink over nothing. If the conference can generate extra revenue from regiggering the schedule, and Michigan gets more money and builds better facilities, I don't see much of a downside.

The most important thing is that they play every year, and it looks like that will be the case.

So how can you care as much? I doubt you'll see many downward spirals, just because there IS something else to play for. It's not the be all, end all. It won't be the difference to advancing to the Championship Game or not. And it can't necessarily be putting everything into the game, because you have to play again next week. Bo making the players to something to prepare for Ohio St. everyday? Well, yeah...except now for the month after you're done playing them.

All so we can get a couple more bucks for facilities. Which everyone else in the Big Ten gets, so it's no real advantage.

I'm thinking it's just pretty obvious you don't get the rivalry at all.

I've been to those game. I get the rivalry. But Bo doesn't coach here anymore. You should know how delapatated our facilities are. Not to mention the amount of money invested in the stadium and other varsity upgrades.

I'll take it, begrudgingly. And I'll gauge whether my interest has gone down in 10 years. But I think the "end of the year" versus "October 1st - that's crazy" argument is a red herring. It's about competitive interest. If we played in the first conference game and it determined divisional standings, U-M - OSU would be a lot more interesting than a November 15th out-of-division game that I could watch and think, "Ok, we can lose this game, beat the other divisional leader, get to the Rose Bowl. No sweat."

Of course bragging rights over OSU fans would be lost any time we lose to OSU. I see your side of things - I am still really, really going to want to win that game. It's going to matter. All I am saying is that if there is a world in which I (or an OSU fan) can say, "It wouldn't be so bad if we lost this game to OSU/U-M," that world is no fun.

I want it to be bad - very, very bad. I want it to hurt. That's what rivalries bring to the table - pain. And the ecstacy of inflicting such pain on thine enemies so as to smite them and their unwashed brethren. And while it would still matter, it might matter less. If that is something we can avoid, why not? Why roll the dice hoping for world-ending pain (2006) when you can have excruciating pain every year?

Tenn-Ala=Michigan-Michigan State. They may be rivals, but they aren't the biggest rivals. Maybe they were at one time, I don't know, but they aren't now. And that defeats your argument that it won't change the rivalry as long as they still play.

Other than that -- who are you kidding? M versus OSU is different from Alabama/Auburn/Tennessee. Alabama still plays its most intense rival within its division -- that game still has that dimension. Just because there was another rivalry game that was moved out of division is not relevant to the discussion. Unless you think MSU is Michigan's most intense rival?

But since you bring it up, and as I've already mentioned in comments below, Bama and Auburn hated each other so much they didn't play for 40 years. So when they feel like playing, you're right, it's the last week of the regular season. And talking with Bama and Auburn fans I don't get the impression they care at all when they play. they just hate one another. The final score is what is important. If someone goes to the SEC championship game, it's a strawberry on the icing on the cake. But the cake and its icing remain delicious.

The Iron Bowl is the Iron Bowl because of who plays in it. Not because when it is played. And that will remain true of The Game if or when the Big Ten decides to move it.

Seriously, I'm curious, because myself and the ones I know would rather have vultures eat out our livers on a daily basis than move the Alabama game to midseason, much less play them twice in the same season, the thought of which makes me want to vomit all over my keyboard. Every fiber of my being rejects those kinds of ideas. So I'd like to know who these Auburn fans are who'd be fine and dandy with what's happening to The Game happening to the Iron Bowl. Yeah, we'd still hate Alabama, yeah, it'd still be delirious fun to beat them, but that doesn't mean it would still be the Iron Bowl. The Iron Bowl is played the last week of the regular season, as the climax to both team's seasons, and has been since the rivalry was re-instituted. The End.

As for the Third Saturday in October, it doesn't hold up as an analogy to The Game at all, since (as has been pointed out elsehwere in this thread) they only moved it to the fourth Saturday, and in some years it still falls on the third. It's not comparable to what Delany and Co. are proposing. Besides, Tennessee fans are the worst possible fanbase to ask about huge year-end rivalries--they get all of their big games (Florida, Georgia, 'Bama) out of the way by November and close every season with Kentucky and Vanderbilt. If they're OK with moving rivalry games around, it's because they'd like to get some of what M-OSU and Auburn-Alabama have already got.

When I read Brian's post I was rather disappointed. I've been an mgoblogger for quite some time, and I've never seen him lower himself to the level of calling someone else "stupid" for having a different point of view. From my perspective, I don't see why this topic is that big of a deal. I'd prefer to keep M-OSU at the end of the year for tradition's sake, but as long as we keep playing OSU, I can see getting equally juiced up for a Michigan-Michigan State or Michigan-Nebraska year end game, which is probably the likely outcome of this. I understand our schedule will be harder, but that will make it more rewarding if Michigan makes it through undefeated, and will prepare the team for games against very tough bowl opponents.

While I understand people being passionate about this, it's not something that can be mathematically evaluated as much of the analysis on this blog is. It's much more of an emotional, gut-feeling topic. Which is why it's all the more disappointing that Brian would call someone else's opinion on this "stupid". We all have our hot-button issues and this is surely one of his and he just does not understand why other people don't "get it" like he does.

That being said, let me take you to task equally for engaging in your own name calling. Now you're calling Brian "stupid" back and bringing politics into it for some unknown reason. Seriously, all political commentators have their own "opinions" and they pretty much think everyone else's opinions are garbage (Beck on the right, Olbermann on the left). And that's what sells. Find me a "tolerant" political commentator and I'll show you one most likely without a job. That's what they do for a living, stir the pot. But I don't think Brian's step into insults constitutes him becoming a loud-mouth political commentator. Brian's comments are almost always logical, which is why I like reading this blog. In this instance, he's made it personal, and I'm not sure why, but I'll just ignore it and remain a faithful reader for now. However, if the commentary here starts to degrade to an mlive or espn level, that will do it for me.

Honestly, I was ok with the whole separate divisions/meeting a couple times a decade thing until now. I've been watching & going to games for over 40 years, and what was most important to me in my mind was the "spirit of the rivalry" or whatever.

Essentially, The Game being meaningful meant a whole lot more to me than just a traditional date on a calendar. Playing OSU for a chance to play in the B10 championship seemed in all ways inferior to actually playing OSU in the championship; even if it were infrequent (every 4-6 yrs).

But the reality of how often we'd actually get matched up together began to sink in, as did the pointless idea of an earlier season game.

What put me over the edge however was the unfortunate reality of how that once a decade matchup would actually be handled. Brian & others are right, it would be marketed to hell in a sterile, neutral, domed (for fan comfort$) location.

Unacceptable.

It's one of the reasons I never liked the (corporate proposed) idea of a playoff, it would suck out the life and tradition of college football for the chance to make a few watered down dollars. The current 238 team bowl season has unfortunately be allowed to run amok to the point that it's 98% gone anyhow, and I find myself unenthusiastically supporting a playoff scheme (Brian's concept is sublime which is why his won't be adopted).

So even though it won't matter, a "once a decade REMATCH" (which would be worth hyping the hell out of) has my official seal of approval. ;-)

I'm not blindly following him. I legitimately think it would be better. I'm excited because we get to possibly ruin their shot at the championship and when they finish the season strong for a rematch against us, we get to kick their asses again.

You seem to think that the hate between the two teams will disappear because we aren't playing in the last game of the season. News flash: the last game of the season is the championship game. The hate between fan bases existed before OSU was established, before the game of football was invented, before they played the first game, before Yost, before we beat them 9 times in a row, before we started playing the last game of the year every year, before Fritz, before 98, before Woody, before Bo, before the 10-year war, 2-10-1, before The Pose, before 313, before #2, before Sweater Vest, before 2003, before 2006, before Rich Rod, before Boren, and before losing 6 in a row.

Don't tell me that I "just don't get it". I fucking get it. What everyone seems to forget is that it was the hate between the states that drove the rivalry, not some date on a fucking calendar. Playing the last game of the season might have helped contribute to some but the satisfaction from seeing Craig Krenzel's face after 35-21 doesn't go away because it was played a week or two earlier. The only way it could have been better is if I got to see it twice.

So a majority of people might disagree with that. It might even be 10:1 against me. That doesn't mean that either is right or wrong. It's opinion, not fact. At best, it means that the most people would be satisfied, but that has nothing to do with right and wrong.

If you want to disagree with me, that's fine. I don't care. I enjoy debate. But, don't fucking tell me that I "just don't get it".

What everyone seems to forget is that it was the hate between the states that drove the rivalry, not some date on a fucking calendar.

is factually incorrect. The placement of the game at the end of the season had a profound effect on its significance. Because it was the last game, it was the final test, the deciding moment! It was when all the cards were on the table and everything was coming down to a sequence of events, and you know they were gonna play their guts out because it was all they had left!

Can you seriously tell me that doesn't matter? Think about movies... think of Conan the Barbarian. Can you really sit there and pretend that if Conan killed Thalsa Doom at the beginning of the movie, that the movie would be just as badass as it is? Consider it: Conan sees his village destroyed by Doom, lives a life of slavery, fights his way to the top of barbarian pimpdom, and smites that snake-sucking weasel from the top of his tower!! You cannot, without being completely delusional, tell me that the movie would be just as entertaining if Conan killed Doom at the beginning.

The satisfaction is derived from the build-up and the finality of it all! Do you really have no sense of context? Do you really .... just not get it?

Your statement will be factually incorrect as soon as a Big Ten title game is played, that is the other side of the coin, the dreamy sentimentalist don't want to admit

The placement of the game at the end of the season had a profound effect on its significance. Because it was the last game, it was the final test, the deciding moment! It was when all the cards were on the table and everything was coming down to a sequence of events, and you know they were gonna play their guts out because it was all they had left!

MGoPoints - The way to get back at someone who disagrees with you or makes a rationale statement.

MGoPoints - Our motto is: Benefitting people who follow the crowd.

I agree with the idea of keeping the game as it is. I hate the idea of playing in the middle of October. I hate that Michigan-OSU's sacredness will be diminished. I hate that we won't get to experience a cool, late-November game ending our seasons. I hate that the conference realignment has caused all of this. But, whining about it isn't going to get anywhere. Writing MSC isn't going to get anywhere. Threatening not to donate money to Michigan isn't going to get anywhere. People are overreacting and coming across sounding like whiners. Go ahead and Neg Neg Neg me. MGoPoints are so pointless because they only benefit you if you follow the crowd or make some idiotic statement that others think is funny.

We are the customer. It's the league's job to keep us satisfied. We have every right to complain and they have every obligation to listen. And they should, because if the Game becomes watered down by this idiotic move, then even when we do meet for our once-a-decade rematch, its value will be diminished.

"If you split teams, whether it's Purdue and Indiana or Illinois and Northwestern or Michigan-Ohio State or Nebraska and Penn State, if you split them, they can both go [to the championship game]," Delany said. "If you don't split them, only one can go."

Exactly - if you don't split them, only one team can get what it wants every year. So you are going to make it possible for am OSU fan to say, "It's okay if we lose to U-M in game 4 of the 9 Big Ten games. We can still make the championship and play our way into the BCS."

I don't understand. Is the payoff of a U-M - OSU Big Ten Championship Game so high that it outweighs the risk of steadily-declining seasonal revenue from The Game?